Socialism: what it is – what it is not

In a socialist society, workers will be in a position to
decide which kind of investments are required to promote the social well-being
of the majority; for example, quality education, housing, public
transportation, health care, cleaning up the environment, developing solar
energy, organic farming, etc.

"Socialism!" The mere uttering of the word conjures up
the most horrifying nightmare for a small, extremely rich minority who, because
it monopolizes the productive forces of society-the factories and businesses
that make up our economy - succeed in pursuing unlimited profit and
unimaginable riches by allotting to the rest of humanity an increasingly
smaller share of society's wealth. Having created an objectively unstable
system because of the perilously lopsided distribution of wealth, these rich
people are compelled to manufacture on a daily basis massive doses of
propaganda to serve as their life-support system, with the earnest hope of
convincing their victims that this is, after all, the best of all possible
worlds. Socialism, a doctrine which threatens to pull the plug on their
perverse system before it succeeds in destroying us, the environment, and the
future of humanity, is deservedly the foremost target of this campaign of lies,
deceit, and slander.

This small, capitalist, profit-addicted minority has consequently unleashed
an unrelenting campaign intent upon tying socialism to totalitarianism, drawing
the knot so tightly that the two concepts are pressed into one. One might note,
by the way, that U.S. capitalists themselves have no particular aversion to
totalitarianism - they have toppled countless democratically elected
governments and replaced them with military dictatorships throughout the world.
But they also know that ordinary, decent working people are repelled by any
form of totalitarian rule and with hypocritical glee these capitalists eagerly
exploit this human moral aversion in order to advance their own profit-pursuing
interests.

This campaign of lies received an unexpected windfall ironically from the USSR itself.
Having usurped state power, Stalin violently shredded every remnant of workers'
democracy and proceeded to establish a privileged bureaucracy which enjoyed all
kinds of luxuries, although many people did not have enough to eat. While
Stalin personally ruled over the bureaucracy, the bureaucracy in turn ruled
over the entire country, smashing every independent voice with an iron fist and
murdering those who dared protest. Then, having created its own repressive
regime at the expense of the working population, the Stalinist bureaucracy was
compelled to manufacture its own propaganda machine to give itself the
semblance of legitimacy. Without missing a beat and with his own hypocritical
smirk discreetly concealed from the masses, Stalin, with the pious hope that
all honest aspirations for a genuinely socialist society would be safely set
aside, proclaimed this wretched state of affairs a glorious "socialist" society
.

What more proof could an unsuspecting, inquiring person need when the two
superpowers, avowed enemies, nevertheless agreed that socialism and
totalitarianism were one and the same?

But if one is seriously interested in the truth, would it not be appropriate
to inquire whether Stalin, who was intent on suppressing millions of people,
might not also be intent on suppressing the truth, if it served his interests?
Or should we assume that, even though he fed the Russian people lies while depriving
them of food, when it came to an explosive concept such as "socialism," he
became an honest man? And similarly, should the capitalist class in this
country, who could lose their vast fortunes if the masses acquire a clear
conception of socialism, be exclusively relied upon for an unbiased
presentation of the facts? With these questions in mind, let us turn to Marx so
that we may be in a position to separate fabrication from fact.

Marx has been credited with codifying the first scientific formulation of socialism.
But in what sense is the term "scientific" being employed here? Other
socialists, utopian as opposed to scientific, preceded Marx and were united by
their moral repulsion when faced with the cruel exploitation of capitalism. All
of them individually imagined their own version of a moral, more humane society
and hoped that their vision might capture the hearts of humanity so that people
would be moved to throw off the barbaric capitalistic system and reorganize
society according to the principles they outlined. None, however, offered a
realistic strategy that would suggest how their particular utopia could be
achieved, nor did any of them argue why their particular version was a more
realistic alternative than any of the others, or why it was a realistic
possibility at all.

Marx departed from this utopian tradition and established socialism on a
scientific foundation by undertaking two studies which enabled him to resolve
the above problems. First, he engaged in a detailed study of history which led
him to conclude that the propelling force that underlies historical development
is class struggle: "The history of all hitherto existing societies is the
history of class struggle." Of course, such a statement is an empirical claim,
but history is replete with so many examples that even bourgeois historians
have been forced to resort to the concept of class in order to explain
historical events.

But the fact that history is generated from class struggle still leaves
unanswered the questions, within capitalist society: What are the contending
classes? Which class will prevail in the struggle? What new kind of society
will this class be compelled to create?

In order to tackle these questions, Marx's second study amounted to a
detailed analysis of capitalism, the results of which are recorded in his four
volumes of CAPITAL. A few basic features of his analysis are of
particular relevance to the questions at hand.

First, because it is an economy based on individual private property,
capitalism, at least on one level, is a system which places everyone in
competition with everyone else. In this respect, it is indeed Hobbes' war of
"all against all" where each individual attempts to maximize his or her own
well-being at the expense of others. "The only force bringing them together,
and putting them into relation with each other, is the selfishness, the gain
and the private interest of each. Each pays heed to himself only, and no one
worries about the others." (CAPITAL, Vol. 1.)

Second, and on a deeper level, we find that capitalism by no means places
individuals on a level playing field in this Hobbsian war. At the outset some
individuals, because of historical conditions, own the productive forces of
society - the tools, machines, buildings, etc. that are required to produce
articles that will satisfy society's needs - but the majority of society's
members do not own them and are consequently forced to seek employment from
those who do. The capitalists, the owners of the productive forces, are then in
business to make a profit and thereby expand the amount of private property at
their disposal. But the enterprising capitalist cannot be content with just any
profit; each must aim at the maximum amount, since capitalists are in a
perpetual state of competition with one another. Extra profits serve as an
arsenal that a capitalist can employ to undercut and thereby eliminate a
competitor.

But this requirement to maximize profits, resulting from inter-capitalist
competition, in turn unleashes an inexorably antagonistic dynamic between the
capitalists, on the one hand, and their workers on the other. All of the things
that workers want for themselves and their family - higher salaries, health
benefits, lengthy, paid vacations, sick leave, pensions, etc. - can only be won
at the expense of the capitalists' profits. The more the workers succeed in
pressing their interests, the lower the capitalists' profits. Consequently,
capitalists and workers find themselves in a perpetual state of war with one
another. Sometimes this war is waged quietly, almost invisibly, as workers
simply leave work early and let someone else punch them out on the time clock.
But at other times these antagonistic relations erupt violently where workers
battle cops in order to defend their picket lines, defy court injunctions, and
halt production until the owners are forced to their knees and concede to their
demands.

Thus far we have considered the relation of capitalist-to-capitalist and
worker-to-capitalist. Before we turn to the crucial relation of worker-to-worker,
we should understand that Marx identifies various tendencies operating within
this system.

First, there is a tendency for the working class to grow as a result of the
competition among capitalists where the losers are precipitated into the working
class.

Second, as one capitalist enterprise swallows up another, there is a
tendency for the prevailing enterprise to increase in size, bringing an
increasing number of workers into close proximity to one another.

Third, the growth in the size of the remaining enterprises then requires the
assemblage of ever-larger quantities of profit to combat the ever-larger
capitalist opponent. And this tendency correspondingly implies an intensified
struggle between capitalists and their respective workers.

Finally, the chaotic, unplanned, every-capitalist-for-himself nature of
capitalism has the inevitable result of spawning endemic economic crises so
that huge sectors of the working class are thrown out of work and production in
many industries comes to a grinding halt.

"Modern bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange and
of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production
and of exchange, is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the
powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells." (Communist
Manifesto)

All of these tendencies conspire to compel the working class into action in
order to defend its standard of living. Initially, workers will pursue the
satisfaction of their needs individually since capitalism, after all,
encourages everyone to operate as an isolated individual.

But workers soon learn the futility of obtaining all they want in terms of
job security, health benefits, pensions, etc., by approaching the boss alone as
individuals, since capitalists know very well that if they concede to the
demands of one worker, the others will soon be knocking at the door. But while
one worker alone is powerless, workers discover quickly that together they can
wield tremendous power. For example, when they launch a strike, production
comes to a halt, profits vanish, and the owner incurs ever greater losses as
machines lie idle, products sit on the shelf, and customers threaten to seek
out another producer.

However, to win a strike, it is not sufficient for workers to remain at
home. They must transform themselves from workers who passively take orders at
the work place into workers who take the initiative, actively organize
themselves, and prepare for battle. They must organize picket lines, make
provisions for food, train defense units, create public relations committees,
etc. And when all these efforts pay off and workers claim victory, their
celebration reverberates throughout the working class. Other workers say to
themselves that they could do the same and proceed to organize themselves so
that strikes spread like a wildfire. But setbacks are inevitable. Neither ‘the
course of true love (nor the course of class struggle) ever did run smooth.'

But there comes a time amidst all these trials and tribulations that the
workers come to the realization that this constant struggle is not the result
of a few bad capitalists but of the capitalist system itself, a system
predicated upon producing profit for the rich by exploiting the entire working
class. Workers realize that they are not simply being oppressed individually,
but as a class, since profits for capitalists can only be maximized by
minimizing wages and benefits for workers. They come to understand that all
competition among workers, all attempts to promote oneself at the expense of
one's co-workers, serve the interests exclusively of the capitalist class,
while inevitably damaging the prospects of the working class as a whole. They
realize that their only salvation lies in acting as a class: organized,
unified, and galvanized by the principle, "An injury to one is an injury to
all." Moreover, because the working class represents the vast majority of the
population, because all wealth is produced by its own sweat and blood, because
the working class, like a beast of burden, carries the entire society on its
shoulders so that capitalism would collapse in an instant without its willing
participation, a deep-seated conviction begins to take hold of the
consciousness of working people - a conviction that they alone have the power
to seize history, shake society at its very foundations, and remake it
according to principles that operate in their interests - the interests of the
majority.

So Marx, in painstaking detail, demonstrates that the logic of capitalism
ineluctably pushes workers into a march towards socialism. This is no utopian
recipe: workers either move towards socialism or watch their standard of living
decline. "Along with the constant decrease in the number of capitalist
magnates, who usurp and monopolize all the advantages of this process of
transformation, the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation and
exploitation grows; but with this there also grows the revolt of the working
class, a class constantly increasing in numbers, and trained, united, and
organized by the very mechanism of the capitalist process of production." (Communist
Manifesto)

Tired of watching their real wages fall, tired of being told the company
will leave the country every time they ask for a raise, tired of monotonous
work, long working days, short vacations, and tyrannical bosses, tired of
watching politicians pander to every whim of the rich at the expense of the
public welfare, working people will rise up, seize society at its foundations
and overturn the entire system with the overpowering strength that comes when
the immense majority of the population, act in their own interests and in the
interests of all the oppressed members of society. "The proletarian movement is
the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the
interests of the immense majority. (Communist Manifesto)

This revolution - for nothing less than a revolution will suffice - will
inaugurate a new age where working people take control of the economy and all
the wealth they themselves created and begin to implement economic policies
that reflect their own interests. The anarchy of capitalism, where individuals
struggle to maximize their own private well-being, will be replaced by a
democratically determined, planned economy where the most socially enlightened
economic alternatives are implemented - those that maximize the well-being of
everyone. "Let us finally imagine, for a change, an association of free men,
working with the means of production held in common, and expending their many
different forms of labor power in full self-consciousness as one single social
force." (Capital, Vol. 1)

For example, in capitalist society huge expenditures are allocated to
military production which are then employed to protect the profits of U.S. business
abroad. Whenever an elected leader in some foreign country hints at
nationalizing U.S.corporate property there, the U.S. government orchestrates a
coup, installs a military dictatorship which proceeds to outlaw strikes,
restrict unions, etc., and thereby succeeds in lowering wages and raising
corporate profits. But as a result of these measures, the wages of American
workers decline as they must now compete against cheaper foreign labor.
Moreover, under capitalism vast sums of money are spent on advertising to
convince people to purchase products that are actually harmful to them
(cigarettes, fast food, alcohol, etc.), or products that they really do not
need, or to convince people to buy one brand rather than another when there is
no substantial difference between the two.

In a socialist society, workers will be in a position to discontinue these
kinds of investments in favor of others that directly promote the social
well-being of the majority; for example, quality education, housing, public
transportation, heath care, cleaning up the environment, developing solar
energy, organic farming, etc.

But all aspects of the economy can be similarly reorganized to reflect the
interests of the majority. While capitalists strive to minimize the number of
workers at every business, but maximize the amount of work each worker
performs, thereby making unemployment endemic, under socialism everyone who is
able will be encouraged to work so that the work week may be correspondingly
reduced, thereby providing working people with more free time.

Moreover, work itself will be immediately humanized. In contrast to
capitalism where workers are compelled to submit to the will of the boss, in a
socialist society every position of authority will be elected so that these
elected officials will nevertheless be required to submit to the will of the
majority, under threat of being removed from their position. With this
inversion of power, workers can take steps to organize production so that their
own well-being and the interests of society are simultaneously maximized.

Once everyone is afforded a quality education, once workers' control of
production is institutionalized and the work week is reduced, the crippling
division of labor that capitalism imposes on its work force will gradually be
replaced by a society in which individuals will be encouraged to develop all
their capacities. "...[T]he division of labor," according to Marx, "offers us
the first example of how... [an] activity is not voluntarily, but naturally,
divided, man's own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves
him instead of being controlled by him. In contrast, under socialism, we will
be in a position to move towards establishing a society in which "nobody has
one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch
he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible
for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish
in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I
have a mind, without ever becoming a hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic." (The
German Ideology)

Marx suffered no illusions about the possibility of establishing a fully
developed form of communism in one single revolutionary leap because the kind
of human nature engendered under capitalism - selfish individualism, an
insatiable desire for the accumulation of material gain, unbridled aggression
and the steadfast determination to avoid as much work as possible - will not be
extinguished overnight: "What we have to deal with here," he argued, "is a
communist society, not as it has developed its own foundation, but, on the
contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every
respect, economically, morally and intellectually, still stamped with the birth
marks of the old society from whose womb it emerges." (The Critique of the Gotha Program)

Accordingly, Marx distinguished a lower and higher stage of communism. In
the lower stage, which has come to be labeled "socialism," people will be
rewarded in proportion to how much work they perform: "He [the worker] receives
a certificate from society that he has furnished such and such an amount of
labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds), and with this
certificate he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as
costs the same amount of labor." (The Critique of the Gotha Program) In this way, people will
experience a direct incentive to work.

Of course, this principle - rewards commensurate with the amount of labor
performed - represents an about-face from the prevailing capitalist principle:
those who have the most shall receive the most, regardless of whether they
perform any work at all! Consequently, the wealthiest 200 members of the
capitalist class enjoyed watching their wealth double in one year recently,
thanks to the stock market, while 20% of working Americans worked full-time but
were not paid sufficiently to rise above the poverty line.

One absolutely crucial ingredient in this process of historical development
is the relation of the working class to the state. Under capitalism, the state
is generally controlled by the wealthy, and democracy amounts to the rich
determining among themselves which policies to impose on the rest of society.
Even such bourgeois publications as The New York Times have supplied accounts
detailing how capitalists - through an elaborate process of lobbying, campaign
contributions, etc. - succeed in imposing their will on the public domain. But
Marx did not simply endorse the working class trading roles with the capitalist
class, taking the reins of government in its own hands and expelling its former
oppressor. The capitalist institutions of government have become a huge
bureaucracy, immune to dramatic change, a feature which serves capitalists
quite well since they have no interest in forging great changes in a system
that operates exclusively in their interests. But a bureaucratic government
would be anathema for working people, since power is monopolized in the hands
of a few while the majority is disenfranchised.

In order to create democratic institutions that could be wielded by the
majority, not simply a minority, Marx insisted that the former bureaucratic
institutions would have to be "smashed," as he explained in a letter: "...[I]f
you look at the last chapter of my 18th Brumaire, you will find that I declare
that the next step of the French Revolution will be no longer, as before, to
transfer the bureaucratic-military machine from one hand to another, but to
smash it, and this is the preliminary condition for every real people's
revolution on the Continent." (Letter to Kugelmann, 1871) In place of the
oppressive bureaucracy, Marx envisioned commune-like institutions that were created
by working people in Paris in 1871 and later in Russia prior to
and at the time of the 1917 revolution. These are institutions that are created
by workers on the most basic level of their experience, in the factory or in
their neighborhoods, in order to democratically press their own needs. "Instead
of deciding once in three or six years which member of the ruling class was to
misrepresent the people in Parliament, universal suffrage was to serve the
people, constituted in Communes...." (The Civil War in France) The
centralized power was then to be demoted in favor of creating real power on the
local level:

"...[T]he Commune was to be the political form of even the smallest country
hamlet.... The rural communes of every district were to administer their common
affairs by an assembly of delegates in the central town, and these district
assemblies were again to send deputies to the National Delegation in Paris,
each delegate to be at any time revocable and bound by the mandat imperatif
[formal instructions] of his constituents."

In this way, "The Communal Constitution would have restored to the social
body all the forces hitherto absorbed by the State parasite feeding upon, and
clogging the free movement of society," and the former centralized,
bureaucratic government would give way to "the self-government of the
producers." (The Civil War in France)

As socialism unfolds and scarcity is eliminated, removing the blight of
poverty from humanity, and after people create new, more nurturing relations
among themselves so that the individual no longer looks out in fear upon a
hostile world, these social relations will give birth to a new human nature
with a new social consciousness where people realize that no one can be free as
an individual while others are enslaved. As social creatures dependent upon one
another for the satisfaction of both our physical and psychological needs, we
come to the realization that our individual well-being cannot be achieved
alone. "Only in community [with others has each] individual the means of
cultivating his gifts in all directions; only in the community, therefore, is
personal freedom possible. " (The German Ideology) Hence, "...the free
development of each is the condition for the free development of all." (Communist
Manifesto)

Far from suppressing individuality, therefore, communism, as defined by
Marx, will be the first social formation that actually allows individuality to
blossom. Under capitalism, "... that for which I can pay - that I am.... Thus
what I am capable of is by no means determined by my individuality.... I am
bad, dishonest, unscrupulous, stupid; but money is honored and therefore so is
its possessor." Under communism, on the other hand, "...you can exchange love
only for love, trust only for trust, etc. If you want to enjoy art, you must be
an artistically cultivated person; if you want to exercise influence over,
people, you must be a person with a stimulating and encouraging effect on other
people. Everyone of your relations to man and to nature must be a specific
expression, corresponding to the object of your will, of your real individual
life." (1844 Manuscripts)

A life in which most of our waking hours are devoted to acquiring the
necessities to survive will give way to a life in which our physical needs are satisfied
and we can proceed to develop our more spiritual talents: art, science,
philosophy, literature, etc.

Finally, "...after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the
division of labor, and therefore also the antithesis between mental and physical
labor has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's
prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round
development of the individual, and all the springs of cooperative wealth flow
more abundantly - only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be
crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banner; "From each
according to his ability, to each according to his need." (The Critique of
the Gotha
Program)

While the capitalist class and Stalinists have gone to exceptional lengths
to conceal and distort Marx's positions, Marx himself, with unbridled
enthusiasm, did everything in his power to disseminate them in the most
unambiguous form conceivable. And so the Communist Manifesto concludes:

"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare
that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing
social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution.
The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to
win. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!"